The Persona franchise is one of the most beloved Japanese gaming franchises, known to many for being multi-hour-long content monsters that combine Pokemon-esque combat mechanics, a high school life simulator, and very engaging stories with powerful narrative themes and characters. Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 Royal are two of my favorite games, so needless to say when the news came out that Atlus was doing a remake of Persona 3, my interest was piqued. Due to my lack of experience with the first Persona 3, my review of P3R will only be viewing it from a standalone point (with some comparisons with 4 and 5), so I cannot make any comments on how faithful of a remake it is to the original. Released as Persona 3 Reload (P3R), rather unsurprisingly, Atlus have done it again and dropped an absolute masterpiece of a game. In fact, I might go on to say it might be my favorite overall Persona game, which is high praise considering how incredible 4 and 5 were.
Like the other Persona games, there exists an alternate dimension of sorts where the protagonist and his allies can utilize their powers and fight Shadows, and in P3R, this alternate dimension is known as the Dark Hour, a specific period of time that follows midnight and is only consciously accessible by those who have awakened to their powers. In the Dark Hour there exists a large tower known as Tartarus, where most of the Shadow fighting occurs. The main difference between P3R and the other games is that the Dark Hour’s existence is independent of the protagonist, as its existence is known to other individuals even before the main character acquires his powers. The main premise of P3R’s narrative is that during the Dark Hour, Shadows are preying on the helpless general public (who are mostly unaware of the Dark Hour’s existence), and it is up to the main character and his allies (collectively known as S.E.E.S), to defeat these Shadows while trying to investigate the true nature of the Dark Hour and why it exists.
Gameplay:
For those already familiar with the Persona games, P3R should feel right at home. The game follows more or less the same formula as the previous entries, where most of the calendar year is spent socializing with other people to build up Social Links, and then sometimes at night venturing into a dungeon (known as Tartarus in this game) to defeat Shadows. The combat is turn-based, focused on identifying enemy weaknesses and then exploiting them to trigger All-Out Attacks to wipe them out. In order to get progressively better at defeating stronger Shadows, the player has to fuse stronger Personas, and more progressed Social Links allow for stronger fusions. Overall, the combat is not to dissimilar from Persona 5, so for those who enjoyed the combat system of 5, they’ll likely find themselves enjoying P3R. One of the things I do appreciate is the amount of quality-of-life features they added to exploring Tartarus; the game adds periodic teleporters that can bring the party either back to the entrance or another previously-explored floor, and also lets the player immediately use a teleporter or climb to the next floor if they have discovered the relevant device or stairs from the map interface. This makes it super convenient when running through the dungeon to grind money and experience (like hunting rare Treasure Hand enemies) and cuts out what could have been a very tedious process. I played the game on the standard difficulty, and I thought the various combat encounters were generally well-tuned; a lot of the boss fights in the game were decently challenging and required a bit of strategy outside of just brute-forcing. The final boss ended up being a walk in the park for me, but that was because I excessively grinded/over-leveled while pursuing all achievements, but that is completely on me and not an actual criticism of the game.
An interesting part of the game is that some of the main cast members don’t have social links; in fact none of the male characters in the playable cast have social links. At first I was a tad skeptical, since traditionally social links are generally where a lot of important character development usually happens, but I later discovered that most of them have “Link Episodes” that basically function in a similar way. However, unlike Social Links, which can generally be progressed at one’s own pace, Link Episodes usually only pop up at certain times (likely tied to main story progression) and the opportunity to view them will not always be around, so one must be vigilant and pay attention to the map for “!!” markers to know when one is available.
Overall, I enjoyed the gameplay of P3R a lot, but I would probably still rank Persona 5 above it due to my preference for the palace set-pieces that introduced a ton of variety in level design that Tartarus lacks in comparison.
Writing:
Based on my previous experiences with the Persona franchise, I went into Persona 3 Reload with high expectations for its writing, especially since word on the street was that Persona 3 was notable for being supposedly the “darkest” of the main-line Persona games. P3R certainly did not disappoint; in fact I think its main story is probably the strongest of the three Persona games I have played. Each of the previous Persona games I played had their own central narrative theme, with 4 focusing on self-identity/truth and 5 focusing on rebellion against oppression and taking personal action. In contrast, I actually found it a bit more difficult to pinpoint P3R’s central theme. Death, and its subsequent inevitability, is a pretty big part of the game, but I would hesitate to say that it’s the main “point” of the game, so to speak. This should be taken with a grain of salt as I am not a literature major, but after finishing the game, I got a stronger impression that the P3R’s main point was about taking agency in one’s life and making the most out of it. Death may be inevitable, but that does not mean life itself is pointless, and if anything, it is the fact that life eventually comes to an end that makes it all the more precious and meaningful. The way this theme is integrated into the character arcs of most of the main cast members makes for some powerful storytelling, and I honestly think P3R’s main cast of characters is probably the strongest of all the Persona games I have played for precisely that reason. The S.E.E.S group dynamic also felt the most natural in terms of relationship progression; they are more or less a group of different individuals who come together over a common goal through unrelated motivations, and do not immediately start off as best friends, but rather learn to trust and depend on each other over the course of the game.
P3R’s overall narrative and character writing was outstanding, but it did have its weak links (pun intended). My two biggest issues with P3R’s story would probably be its pacing and its actual Social Link content. The pacing for the main story, and in a lot of the Social Links, generally feels very back-loaded, where most of the significant moments happen towards the end, with a lot of the beginning and middle feeling rather pointless/padded out. While the later parts of the game felt like a rollercoaster, the earlier portions definitely felt a bit on the slower side, so it took me a while to really begin to appreciate the game’s content. Pacing aside, the quality of a lot of the Social Links in P3R also felt very inconsistent. If I remember correctly the original Persona 3 was where the Social Link mechanic was first introduced, so this was more or less their first attempt at such a system, so honestly this did not come as much of a surprise. That is not to say the Social Links in P3R are bad, because there are absolutely some amazing ones (Sun Arcana one is probably my favorite in the entire series), but on average they felt weaker than the Social Links introduced in subsequent titles.
Misc/Ending Thoughts:
As is tried and true of the franchise, Persona 3 Reload comes with a stellar soundtrack, and there is no shortage of certified bangers. Granted, I assume most of the numbers are probably just remixes of songs in the original iteration, but if anything that just shows how well the music has aged. I especially enjoyed the music that starts playing in the latter half of the game (even more so in the final calendar month of gameplay), when the story has progressed more and the overall stakes are higher and the music reflects the mood perfectly.
Overall, P3R is a nice modern revamp of a beloved classic, and will be a must-recommend for anybody who is already used to the Atlus formula. Like 4 and 5, it is a lengthy game that will probably result in 60+ hours of gameplay time, which feels somewhat normal for a lot of big RPG titles, but I do feel the need to point that out to anyone who might have less free time on their hands and might not have the opportunity to just spend that much time on a singular title. For those that do, the reward is great.
Rating: It is a bit more expensive on Steam, retailing at $70, but the game is actually available on Xbox Gamepass, which is only a $10/month subscription. Unless there really is a strong need to personally own the game, I high recommend the Gamepass path as $10 is an absolute steal.
